Chapter Text
“He’s a hero!” Katara’s voice comes in through the door clearly as she shouts.
“He’s an outsider and we need answers.” Pakku responds at a slightly less angry volume.
Then the door opened. At least Li knew why they were there.
It was Pakku, Katara, and Yue. Thankfully no one else from the counsel was with them, which would make this easier.
Pakku wasn’t an ally exactly, but he had vouched for Li and so he had an interest in keeping him on good terms with the tribe.
“This is ridiculous!” Katara continued to complain but at a lower volume than before. “We save everybody, and you want to keep him locked up until we let you all interrogate him.”
“It’s okay Katara.” Li tells her. He’s resigned to something like this happening after he used his bending in such a public way.
“I’m glad at least one of you sees reason.” Pakku remarks approvingly. “Now, young man, explain to me what happened in that oasis. How were you, a non bender, able to save the moon spirit?”
“Well…” Li sighed. “I’m not a nonbender. I’m… well I’m a firebender.”
Pakku stood there in stunned silence for a moment. Then he looked calculating. Then he became pale and stared at Li in a really weird way.
“You’re a… and you were adopted into… but surely we would have been told by the…” Pakku muttered in a way that almost seemed more to himself. Then he turned away for a little while, continuing to mutter, only quieter.
“What’s going on?” Yue whispered to them. “Is there something that you guys didn’t tell me yet?”
“Nope. You got the full story.” Li replied with a shrug.
“You’re Prince Zuko aren’t you?” Pakku suddenly accuses.
“Except for that part.” Katara admits guiltily as Yue stares at them open mouthed.
“I was Prince Zuko. A long time ago.” Li corrects with pain in his voice. He hates having to explain this to people.
“It doesn’t matter who he was before. He’s a water tribe warrior now.” Katara stubbornly defends him. “Only someone of the water tribe would find a way to make fire, an element of destruction, heal.”
Li blushed and looked away. He really didn’t think that was true but it was nice that that was how she viewed it.
He wasn’t sure how he had been able to heal, but he suspected that it was something that other firebenders could do if they only stopped fighting long enough to actually learn from the waterbender healers. His time with Yugoda had been what showed him the way to do it. Even then it had been a long shot with Tui.
“This is a disaster.” Pakku said, looking like someone had poked a hole in his side and drained all the blustering arrogance out of him. “I vouch for a boy who turns out to be the crown prince of the enemy nation.”
“You’re crown prince Zuko of the Fire Nation?” Yue asks, still looking more than a little shocked. “You’re not just some prince but the one who is supposed to become the next Fire Lord? And that old man who helped us…”
“I am no prince. Not anymore.” Li repeats. He doesn’t understand what’s so hard to get about that. Zuko was dead. “Prince Iroh is the Fire Lord’s older brother. He is – was – my uncle. I guess. A long time ago.”
“That’s why he asked that I watch over you.” Pakku said, a little anger returning to his voice. “But the Grand Lotus didn’t bother to tell me the whole story. Because of course he didn’t.”
Iroh was a grand lotus? The Grand Lotus.
Was he the one who inducted Jeong Jeong?
Did he know about Li? If he was part of the white lotus society why had he been after the avatar and working with Zhao back at the abbey?
None of this made sense. It made his head hurt just to try and think about it.
“Nothing changes the fact that Li saved everyone. He saved the moon!” Katara insisted, placing her hands on her hips and facing off against Pakku.
Yue stepped up to stand beside her with a nod, despite shooting a confused glance Li’s direction.
“Foolish girl, of course this matters.” Pakku sneered. “But, what truly matters is that no one else learn about this.”
They all stared silently at the waterbending master.
“Keep your mouths shut and I will settle this matter.” Pakku told them and then strode purposefully from the room.
“That was a sudden about face.” Yue said what they were all thinking.
Li could do nothing but nod. His head ached and he felt the tiredness that had plagued him ever since the night in the oasis creep back in.
He lay back against his pillows and closed his eyes. At least they didn’t seem to be throwing him into prison or out of the city to freeze.
*******************************
For the next few days he drifted in and out of sleep seemingly at random. He felt a fatigue that surpassed anything he had ever experienced before. His inner fire was the low coals of a neglected campfire. It wasn’t gone but he wouldn’t be bending.
Not that that was an option.
The story that Pakku was insisting upon was that the healing was entirely due to Yue’s blessing and an act of La’s divinity. No one who had not been in the oasis knew the truth and those who had been there were sworn to secrecy.
Each time that Li awoke from sleep he was not alone. One or more of his friends was always somewhere in his room, keeping him company even in his slumber.
One night he awoke to moonlight coming through the curtains and saw Sokka, Katara, and Aang all asleep in various places throughout the chamber. Katara had clearly been staying up reading what looked like a waterbending scroll but was now drooped back in her chair with it splayed out on her lap.
Li simply smiled and allowed himself to drift back to sleep.
“That’s enough rest for now young man.” Yugoda told him briskly the next morning. “It’s time to get up out of bed before your muscles stop remembering how to move at all.”
They started out slow, just a walk down the hall and back and it was enough to use up all his energy and make him grateful for the breakfast that waited back in his room.
Over the next week he regained more and more strength and slept less and less during the day.
“You used up far too much chi with that stunt you pulled.” Yugoda chided him as she felt along his chi paths one day, doing some light healing to help him along.
“It was sort of necessary.” He replied with a shrug.
“Stop moving.” She scolded.
He obeyed and lay quietly as she finished her healing session.
“Yue was up and right as rain days ago but you used up far more of yourself. You nearly died. I hope you know what danger you put yourself in young man. You must never again try and do something so risky.”
“Yes ma’am.” He meekly replied, careful not to nod and annoy her further.
Her expression softened and she put her waters away. Then unexpectedly she pulled him into a hug.
It reminded him so much of Kanna that he felt tears in his eyes.
She patted him on the shoulder and left without another word.
*******************************
Sokka was happy to be back on a water tribe ship, headed out finally from the North Pole.
Pakku and Yue were taking the ship and a group of volunteers south to their sister tribe to start helping to rebuild. It was the first step in reestablishing contact now that the North was no longer going to be isolated from the rest of the world.
They had all decided to ride along until their paths would need to diverge. Now that Katara and Aang had a good handle on waterbending they were off to Omashu so that Aang could learn earthbending.
Two elements down, and two to go.
Li stood at the rail of the ship looking more at peace than Sokka thought he had ever seen him.
It was strange to think a firebender would enjoy being on the ocean but he supposed he should stop thinking of Li in such black and white terms.
That’s what had been holding them apart for so long.
Almost losing his friend back in the North so soon after they had reconciled had been hard. For the first few days it had seemed likely that Yue and Li would never wake up again.
He shook his head. There was no point dwelling on it. They were both fine now. Everyone had survived. They had won.
Later that morning they reached the point where they would need to take back off on Appa. Shortly before they were due to leave Sokka finally cornered Yue.
She seemed to have been avoiding him or avoiding certain conversations for weeks now.
“Come with us.” He pleaded with her.
Yue looked a little uncomfortable for a moment and then took a deep breath and stood tall, looking back at him.
“I can’t.” She stated clearly. “My duty is to my tribe and I am needed to start the repair of our relationship with the South.”
“Pakku can do that.” Sokka argued. “You shouldn’t have to give up your life to do your duty. We can be together now. Come with us. Come with me.”
Yue looked away.
“I can’t do that.” She said quietly, but she seemed to gain courage as she went. “Even if I wanted to, I can’t run away and travel the world. If I’m going to convince the council that I can be the next chief of my tribe I need to devote myself entirely to that goal.”
He stared blankly back. His mind completely stilled. This information was coming at him out of nowhere. He knew that Yue hadn’t wanted her arranged marriage, but he had no clue that she had wanted something beyond a different partner.
Chief? A woman as chief? Could that even happen?
“I’m so sorry Sokka. I just can’t be distracted by someone else’s plans.” Yue sounded sincerely apologetic and took his hands in hers. “You’re a great guy, and I hope that you’ll write to me, but I think this is where we part ways.”
He stood there as she walked away. Still shocked and confused.
Then the heartbreak started to set in. He felt as though someone had sliced a hole in the bottom of his chest and everything was pouring out of him. It was a heavy sort of feeling.
“Come on Sokka, time to go.” Li said, approaching him and motioning towards the stairs up to the deck.
He simply nodded in response and followed along behind the other teen.
He absently noticed that Li’s hair was starting to creep long enough to cover the top of his scar.
His scar.
Sokka forgot it was there a lot, but as he looked at it now he took note of the differing shades of scar tissue that marked each of the fingers that had gripped the back of Li’s neck. It wrapped from one side to the other, the middle fingertip ending a mere inch from Li’s chin.
A big hand on a small child, because Li had been a bit of a runt back when he joined the tribe.
Sokka missed a lot of what Pakku was saying to them in parting but noticed that the man seemed peeved at Li and simply ignored him.
That was fine.
Yue stood next to Pakku as they bid him and his friend’s goodbye. She didn’t meet his eyes for more than a second and her distance almost hurt more than her rejection earlier.
They climbed onto Appa and started to fly away.
The others were silently looking onwards as they went but after a few minutes they started to shoot confused glances his direction.
The glances got more and more frequent until Li finally turned to him.
“Dude, what in the world happened? You are never this quiet.” The firebender bluntly asked.
“Yue broke up with me.” He decided saying it quickly might hurt less but it still didn’t feel good to say.
“I’m sorry, Sokka.” Katara hugged him.
“That’s rough buddy.” Li awkwardly patted him on the shoulder.
Sokka couldn’t help but chuckle a little.
“Thanks.” He replied, swiping tears away with his arm, smiling and trying not to completely break down laughing or sobbing.
“It’ll be alright Sokka, we’re headed to the Earth Kingdom.” Aang tried to cheer him up. “You know what they say about girls from Ba Sing Se right?”
The kid nudged him in the ribs with a big goofy look on his face and that was the end of his ability to not laugh.
It helped. Just a little of the heaviness that had crept in started to lighten up a bit.
He had the best friends.